Townsville

The next destination we decided to head for was Townsville - thanks to a recommendation from our Lonely Planet guide. To break up the journey we made stops at different towns including a small place called Lucinda to see their 6km jetty. It was really pretty here and there were some stunning houses and one decorated like a grotto with lots of Christmas items scattered around the garden. All the street lamps were hand painted with different images on.

Once we returned to the van, the sun became really bright and Rich asked Rach where his sunglasses were. She didn't know. Rich said he remembered having them on the journey so we headed back towards the car park near the jetty. Suddenly Rich broke suddenly, undid his seatbelt and got out of the car. He had remembered putting his sunglasses on the roof! Fortunately they were still there!

We stopped for lunch in Ingham - another small town that has a large Italian community that had an elaborate cemetery with lots of bright colours. Here there was also the most impressive visitors' centre that we have ever seen. It was huge, interactive, and had massive sculptures of Australian wildlife including the Dugong that looks like a cross between a giant seal and a manatee. The women in the centre thought it was mad that we didn't know what one was.

By now we had reached the 1000km stage in Hattie even though we hadn't seemed to have moved much when we looked at our journey on the map.

We found a nice campsite that seemed to be really organised. Within a few hours of arriving, we were confined to the van as the heavens opened and the campsite roads started flooding.

The next morning the ground was still wet and we were surprised to see the see the effects of the previous night's rainfall. Roads were shut, banks had split and mud covered lots of the roads that were still open.

We headed up a lookout point called Castle Hill which provided us with excellent views of the V8 race track, Townsville and Magnetic Island. It was hard work getting Hattie up the big hill but the views were definitely worth it.

After this we headed to the promenade and Townsville quickly began to become our second favourite place we had visited (after Melbourne of course). There were lots of cafes and bars along the front as well as the free BBQs alongside the water that we were becoming used to. There was a really nice atmosphere here.

It was a nice surprise to see that parking was free along the waterfront so we parked up near to a waterfall so we would remember where we had parked. We had a nice walk around past an impressive war memorial and past the ferry point where you left from if you were heading to Magnetic Island.

We decided to stop off at Reef HQ - the world's largest living coral reef aquarium. When we first arrived, we were informed that there was a talk about turtle taking place in the theatre area so we decided to sneak in to hear the last bit of the talk. The talk was actually really interesting and included a short film and presentation. We learnt a lot in a few minutes - it was sad to hear that only one in a thousand turtle hatchings will survive to maturity.

What really impressed us was the way the marine biologist man kept referring to the volunteers at the aquarium (there's over 140 active volunteers ranging from 18 years old to 82!) It was clear that the man really valued the work of the volunteers and he kept asking a volunteer that was in the theatre for her input as she actually volunteered In the Turtle Hospital next door. The volunteer was called Win and she must have been in her seventies but you could see how passionate she was about all the animals in the aquarium, not just the turtles.

After the talk, the whole theatre was split into groups so we could visit the Turtle Hospital next door. We didn't know how we would react to the hospital, whether it would be a sad experience or an uplifting experience. We found it to be the latter. All the turtles looked happy and well cared for and it was nice to hear stories of other turtles being returned to the wild.

The room we were first taken to was quite small but filled with different plastic tanks that housed sick turtles. Each turtle had their own little board to track their process (just like in hospitals back home).

The injuries sustained to the turtles ranged from damage from other animals attacking them to more serious cases of lumps in their mouths which is a form of cancer. The marine biologist (Tony) identified each turtle, what they were in for and the course of treatment they were receiving.

After all the other people in our group had made their way back to the aquarium next door, we got talking to Tony and it turned out that he had lived in Manchester for a while studying and he used to spend his free time at the pub at the bottom of Rach's road when she was living in Manchester - such a small world! He then told us that he would take us to see some more turtles that he hadn't shown the rest of the group. He took us to a separate room that was up some stairs to see a huge turtle that had stability problems so he only had a little bit of water in his tank (that dwarfed the other tanks as it was the size of a small swimming pool).

We headed back to the aquarium to wander around the other exhibits, to look for sharks and search for Nemo. We grabbed a bite to eat in the café that was surrounded by water tanks with different animals in.

By the time we had finished eating, it was 2.30pm and it was time for feeding time at the aquarium. Win had come up to us and told us about this and pointed out the baby crocodiles we had walked past without realising. We had a good chat with her and she told us how she only volunteered one day a week now but used to do a lot more. It was remarkable considering her age. She joined us for the feeding talk where we saw the crocodiles being fed and all the fish too. Win joined the group for the talk and was concerned that one of the crocs hadn't been fed so she made sure the keepers went back to feed it as the other croc kept trying to pinch the meat.

We had really enjoyed our day and it took Rich back to the days when he wanted to be a marine biologist himself.

After a quick walk around the town (which was being redeveloped) and a food shop in Woolworths, we went back to the campsite to have a BBQ.